Of Medicine and Men

Pictured above is the latest dosage assigned to me by my back doctor - twice daily, with two of the pills for ingestion in between also. A couple of them may induce drowsiness; the little white and red number is one, so I'm just about to try them out and see how close they take me to the land of nod.

I'd expected to be sent for an MRI today and was quite pleased this wasn't the case. I'd rather we continued the conservative approach than go under the knife too soon. Not that I terribly mind the being sliced open, but I'd rather this be at my convenience and I'm just too busy at the moment. And I can put up with the pain. In fact, this is likely to be significantly reduced since the last cache of medicine pretty much ran out a week ago, so the last week has been basically one without too much in the way of pain-killers to keep me going. I'm hoping that the next couple of weeks will be easier.

Actually this makes things sound a lot worse than they really are. The pain never reaches the proportions of an ordeal as it dissipates almost as soon as I sit down. It's only when I'm upright that there is a real problem - for some inner, mechanical reason, at that time gravity is not my friend.

It's strange to think that the pain manifests itself in a place distinct from where the problem lies. As far as I understand it, the nerve is getting trapped? irritated? near or at the vertebrae, but it's my right leg that's suffering. (Isn't it odd how we can sort of detach ourselves from our various bits and pieces, as in that last sentence. After all it's me that's suffering rather than my leg - but then that implies my leg is somehow not me. Whoops.)

It's also strangely intriguing to monitor the pain. It begins as something that is not-pain, something almost pleasant, like the mild soreness you experience when or after playing a vigorous game. At some point (usually around the ten minute stage) it becomes a definite discomfort, but, still, it would be a bit exaggerated to call it 'pain'. That arrives about five minutes later and, in a sense, it remains something you might willingly put up with, except that you begin to acknowledge you can't. The right foot now starts to, ever so slightly, go numb. At this point mild vocalising sets in, on the lines of ouch! or agh! Then the need to sit mysteriously transmutes itself into a complete, total, unarguable necessity. And then, as soon as you are seated the pain either disappears immediately or slowly eases in almost pleasant waves. Of course, there's a mild and useful fear in the back of my mind that one day it might not go and then what will I do? This is useful because it keeps the reality of the situation clear and serves as a reminder that I am nowhere close to real suffering (which begins when it doesn't go - and it's pass me the morphine, nurse, time.)

In that sense I'm undergoing an extremely useful, privileged, experience. In Islamic thought we have this idea that God might test us, but it will be only to the limits of what we can bear - though those limits might surprise us. I'm nowhere close to that line and, at the moment, being given a salutary glimpse of what that test might be like. A little like the useful hunger of fasting month.